The 4-Step Process to Promote Your Epic Content So You Get More Visitors

You found the topics that are continually getting high traffic in your niche.

You found an angle that your audience will love.

You ambitiously write an outline for the post, and then you start writing it. You spend hours polishing it to make it the best post out there about your topic.

And then what… no one even knows that it exists.

It hurts, right? You spend hours writing the best post out there about a topic, and you get a couple of visitors, while others write a post that is not that great as yours about the same topic, but they get thousands of visitors.

It’s so annoying!

The Reality About Getting Traffic to Your Epic Posts

Traffic won’t come by itself.

Imagine you’re in New York and you have the best hotel out there, but it’s still new, and you didn’t place any advertisements about it.

It’s not on the main street either, so people who are crossing by couldn’t see it.

Imagine you’re in this situation. Do you think you’ll get people to reserve enough rooms to keep your business going?

Even if you have the best service out there and even if your prices are lower, no one will come to you.

You need to go out and promote it. You may need to place advertisements to promote it. Make joint ventures with others by providing coupons for their customers and so on.

The same thing about blogging. I don’t mean you need to place advertisements.

What I mean is that you need to step out of your comfort zone and promote the heck out of your post.

At least, spend the same time you wrote the post in promoting it.

Derek Halpern even suggests that you spend 80% of your time promoting your post and only 20% of your time writing new posts.

How Do You Promote Your Post?

Most bloggers think that promoting a new post means just making a few tweets, liking the post, sharing it on Facebook, and sharing it in other social networks.

Yes, these actions could get you some traffic, but that’s not the right promotion unless you’re Neil Patel or Darren Rowse with hundreds of thousands of followers.

Until you reach this stage, you have 2 things to do:

1. Spend money

2. Reach to people who have the people you want to reach.

Being new, it means that you don’t have the budget to spend promoting your post, so we’ll talk about the later in this post.

To promote your post by blogging outreach, you need to follow 4 steps. Yes, it may take some time, but it’s better to get hundreds or thousands of people to see your post than it is to see your work writing the post go in vain.

If you’re ready to spend more time promoting the post, continue reading.

1. Find people who showed interest in your topic

It’s obvious, right?

You can’t ask someone to share a post you wrote about a topic they’re not interested in.

So, how do you find people who have already shown interest in your topic?

Find posts about the same topic that did really well

Find the people who linked to it and/or shared the post on social media.

Simple, right?

I won’t go into details in the first step because I already shared a few tools to help you with in my post, How to Find Blog Post Ideas That Are Proven To Be Popular.

After you find several posts, search for the people who linked to it and/or shared it with their friends.

Thank you, this makes so much sense and is easy to understand the concept. I'm still working through the valuable tips you gave me during our Skype call a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately I'm not the best at computer stuff and some of the sites baffle me but it's a fantastic learning curve journey!

So I'm planning to promote my last blog entitled "Zakynthos" as that reached almost 500 people on the flying pancakes page within 24 hours, happy with that!

Eek, I'm still in the shy, retiring new blogger category so this type of 'forward' connection has always seemed a bit too far out of my comfort zone! But you've broken it down to make it seem a more manageable.

But I think if I were to do this I'd probably make sure that beyond an interest in the topic, there were a tangible value to the blogger in gaining the information contained in the post. I think I might even prefer sharing other peoples posts by email than I would my own!

Why not share your guest post you did here to test it out? It won't feel as much like promotion since it's not your blog but will showcase your content. Might be easier for you starting out. That's what I did the first time.

But I get multiple emails a day asking for my opinion on a post and would I share it if my audience would like it. So it's done all the time!

Sue, This post is a gold mine! It can be extremely frustrating to spend hours on an epic post (and a good one does take a lot of hours) and then it sits there like a tree falling in the forest. So for every hour of writing, you need to spend 1-3 hours promoting.

Thanks so much for this post, Ahmed. My niche is crafts and creativity, and I'll admit I've never specifically reached out to influencers to share my posts. Your method seems very doable and I appreciate you explaining it so clearly. Putting this on the To-Do list!

Hi Ahmed and Sue Anne,
I love your ideas and will try them especially the one about finding out who has shared my links on Twitter.
Off topic question: I am planning on self-hosting. I have a concern that when I comment on self-hosted blogs, I don't know when the bloggers write me back since I don't receive notification. I know they reply to my comments since, when I go back to the post, I see that they have responded, but I wasn't notified. However, I always receive notification when you write me back. Do you know why this is? Is there a plug-in you use for example, that enables commenters to know when you've replied to them? Thanks!
JaniceJanice Wald recently posted 3 Guaranteed Ways to Get You More Online Attention

I use CommentLuv Pro and it lets me send an email with the comment reply. Disqus also does this. If you just use WordPress comments, you need to change to CommentLuv or Disqus or have a plug-in that let's commenters check off they want to see follow-up comments.

That's a wonderful post with practical tips. You are right – even if you create the best content out there, if you don't let people know about your content nobody will know it exists! That makes all the effort you took to write that content go wasted – which is not a pleasant thing for bloggers!

I love the tips you have shared here. I agree email outreach will be much more effective than simply sending out a tweet which may or may not get noticed.

The only downside is the time and effort needed to find out those emails and actually sending the emails. But with the tools you have suggested I am sure it will be a much easier thing to do. Also it will be totally worth the effort in the end 🙂

Good morning Amed and Sue – I am fairly new at blogging. This post gave me a blast of new hope! I am anxious to read your next post!

I think you're doing a great job with your blog. I'm still figuring things out. If you have any feedback I would really appreciate it. My site is MS/Art@paintinggodslight.com. I have Multiple Sclerosis and use art as therapy. Thank you for your time! Teri Lissy, DDS

I've never used any of these methods, but am really excited about giving each of them a try. I've heard of ahrefs, but didn't know you can use it see who's linking to your content. I can't wait to try this out! Great post. Thanks for sharing these great tips.Tiffany recently posted Get More Pinterest Followers and Re-Pins with These 5 Easy Steps

Great information from Ahmed here. First time leaving a comment on your blog and I really enjoyed the tips Ahmed has shared. On first glance it's like wow. How do you find the time to do each of the 4 steps?

I would add if you make it a priority being the first item on your to do list and commit to it, over time it will become a habit. Once it becomes a habit the time it takes to do all of these things will be almost cut in half I believe. I will be sure to share this with others.

Thanks for sharing wonderful insight on your post. I will try this trick for my posts and hope i will also get positive result. I have personally experienced that if your social sharing is powerful then you don't need to build singal link to rank that post on search engines because social count is also vote as a backlink

Promoting the article is as important as creating an epic article. If you spend hours to write the most well-researched post on your blog and you don't spend any time in promoting it then all the hard work will result in nothing.

I really liked the point where you told about reaching out to pros to help you spread the word about your article.

Great information from Ahmed here. First time leaving a comment on your blog and I really enjoyed the tips Ahmed has shared. On first glance it’s like wow. How do you find the time to do each of the 4 steps?

This is really helpful. I must say this is a unique way to get connected with those who appreciate content of your site and want to read more or follow your blog or website. It is really great to connect with your loyal readers and this will bring some great results.Gaurav Kumar recently posted 15 Minutes on eAskme Daily to Change Your Life : Contest & GiveAway

I’m glad I got the opportunity to read your Guest Blog post on the Successful Blogging website. Thank you Sue for emailing me and drawing me in for a read.

I believe all Bloggers live for – Reader Engagement. Zero comments, zero engagement can seriously damage Blogger enthusiasm. This is equally true of newbies and experienced Bloggers as well.

Every Blogger needs a faithful following AND having to reply to tons of comments when a Blog post is published. That’s the way Bloggers always measure the – quality of their content – delivered to the Blogosphere.

Having said this, traffic and engagement go hand in hand. The greater the traffic the greater is going to be the engagement. Hence, when I read this Blog post title I said to myself – 4 Steps, I can do this – and I was drawn in to read.

Lovely analogy of a new hotel. I connected with this idea immediately.

I also buy into Derek Halpern suggestion of spending 80% time (in a week perhaps) promoting a Blog post published and only 20% of time (in the same week) crafting new posts.

Just churning out Blog post after Blog post for publication in the hope that readers will find this content organically via search engines can be very disappointing for a Blogger. Each look at the number of their site visitors in GA often add misery to disappointment.

Hey! How do I know, been there, experienced that.

Promoting / Marketing, a well written and presented Blog post. is key to driving away these gut wrenching blues.

Now I read two scary words in your post content Ahmed – Spend Money.

Being perennially broke and almost always running on less than half a shoelace, I wondered about whether to reading on. Thank goodness I did.

Loved the – How To – section you delivered next.

How to identify the people who – Linked – to my Blog post.

Hey! woweee, there are people who linked to my Blog post. Turning cartwheels now . . .

I’m sure going to have to spend my last few bucks at the chiropractor BUT I digress.

BTW, my personal choice – Open site explorer – by MOZ

Never heard about – Topsy – before. Now I am educated. Thank you. I’ve begun to identify people who re-tweeted my Blog post.

ViolaNorbet – God that sounds like my high school girlfriend. Now I have Email Ids.

BTW Ahmed, I’d spend some time, poking around on their – Contact Me – page. Right click – View source and poke around pretty much works for me.

Looking in the page footer carefully also works. I’ve hit pay dirt (email Ids) so very often, I celebrate.

Reaching out to them using a really nicely worded, short interesting Email, the icing on the cake.

Ahmed, beautifully written, packed with value, I’m sharing this Blog post on all my social streams.